It has long been a problem for persons constrained within the boundaries of an area, such as within a vehicle, to view the area beyond and behind those boundaries, since the boundaries, if not transparent, form an obstacle to the person's vision. In the case of vehicles, and more particularly, in the case of land vehicles such as automobiles and the like, the driver or passenger within the vehicle have a field of vision which is limited by the structural components of the vehicle. Thus, the driver of the vehicle may have his vision extremely restricted by portions of the vehicle such as roof support posts, articles loaded between himself and the rear window of the vehicle, and the like, such that large "blind spots" result. The elimination of such blind spots has occupied the design and engineering skills of many persons in recent years due to the large number of automobiles and other vehicles using modern roadways, and in accordance with the increasingly more strict safety requirements imposed on the automobile manufacturers by the governments of the United States and other countries.
In the past, several solutions have been proposed to eliminate such blind spots. Some of these proposed solutions include roof mounted rearview periscopes, wrap around windshields and rear windows, and slide or fender mounted rearview mirrors. All of these developments helped in various degrees to alleviate portions of the viewing problems encountered in driving an automobile. However, none of these developments adequately solved the problem of viewing immediately behind a vehicle or other object such that the path of travel which the vehicle would take to the rear could be examined for the presence of small children, tools, pails, and the like which would be otherwise run over if the driver were not notified of their presence. Consequently, the problem of making the area immediately to the rear of a vehicle visible to the driver has become and remained an extremely important aspect of vehicular safety. The present novel inventive concept was conceived and developed in recognition of and as a solution for this important problem, although it has utility elsewhere.